Comeuppance
by E.Phoard
Summary: Happy birthday, poma14! I hope that you enjoy what I've done with a certain suggestion. Everyone else: this story contains violence and blood and spoilers, so please, turn back now if you think you need to!


John felt good. Relieved. He hadn't felt this alive in years. No, that was wrong; he hadn't felt this alive since the shadow fell on Anna. The shadow that had rendered him useless, impotent. Well, not in that way, but yes, impotent. He paused. That was exactly how he felt.

But now John felt right again. His legs were starting to ache. He stopped to stretch. All that limping was really catching up with him. He leaned against a tree, and chuckled. They had never suspected. Over ten years of work, prison, in bed with Anna, and no one had a clue. He had thought, once or twice, that they suspected, that he had changed his limp, but no one had ever mentioned it. Luckily he was able to pass it off as a lingering ache, a twinge from where the "shrapnel" moved, rheumatism, whatever. Thomas never even asked. Truly, but for this mess with Green, John believed he led a charmed life.

Mess with Green. John picked up the bundle and starting to run again. Mrs. Hughes had done her part. Now he would do his. She was the only one who had known all along. John had realized early that he would have to have an ally in the house, so, one evening after he first started, he joined her for a whisky in her sitting room. She hadn't blinked as he told her about the war, how disillusioned he had been, how timely his heroic injury had been. Permanent injury had been a way out, and would prevent him at least from inflicting any more pain and suffering. So his leg never properly healed. Mrs. Hughes was quite a woman, with fine taste in whisky. John had missed that once he decided to be a reformed drunk.

It had all started a few hours ago. John had been smoking in the courtyard, when Mrs. Hughes came running for him. He had listened while she told him about Mr. Green sneaking up on Miss Baxter. Miss Baxter hadn't heard him for the whir of her sewing machine, and Mrs. Hughes had had the foresight to duck into the boot room and grab a shoe last when she saw him. That's where she'd left him. He had fallen hard, but Miss Baxter hadn't heard a thing. John had stubbed out his cigarette silently and followed Mrs. Hughes inside.

John found Green tied to the table and gagged with an old polishing rag.

"You see, Mr. Bates, it was the only thing I could do. Now's our chance!"

John raised his eyebrow. "Indeed, Mrs. Hughes. What might you suggest?"

Mrs. Hughes sighed. "Suggest, Mr. Bates? I'm suggesting we get rid of him!"

"Indeed."

In the end, the pond was the only place for him. John had looked into the hall and for once no one was lurking about. Mrs. Hughes followed, dragging Green by the armpits. Miss Baxter never looked up from her work. Once at the far end of the courtyard, they traded tasks. Mrs. Hughes was a sturdy woman, but she couldn't manage to get Green all the way to the pond. John handed her his cane, and flexed and stretched, and flung Green over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. And then they moved across the grounds, in silence.

When they arrived at the folly, John flung Green to the steps. Now that they were there, he wasn't entirely sure what they were going to do. He knew what he wanted to do, but he wasn't sure he would, at least, not in front of Mrs. Hughes.

Mrs. Hughes, however, had other plans. She withdrew a long knife and a bottle of smelling salts from her pocket.

"First we revive him, and then you can do it." She was so matter of fact.

"Do what?"

"Cut it off, Mr. Bates!" She looked exasperated. That was exactly what he wanted to do, but…. "Am I going to have to spell it out for you? The organ with which he offended!" John nodded. Anna had always admired Abelard. "Or I'll do it myself if I have to; I've castrated plenty of pigs in my time!"

Together they stripped him from the waist, leaving his hand bound in case he woke in a fury. Mrs. Hughes held the bottle under Green's nose, and jumped back, with John's cane in front of her, when he revived.

John was ready. They had left the gag in Green's mouth. Shouting wouldn't do. The horror and panic in his eyes though….John felt sick. Was that what Anna had felt? John tied everything off with a shoelace. Was that how Anna had looked? Mrs. Hughes was saying something about how this was to make sure it wouldn't happen again. John heard screaming. He sliced. It felt right.

John looked down to see himself covered in blood. Green was writhing. John wasn't sure it made it right. He saw Anna's bruised face, her scared body, her torn soul. It didn't make it right. Nothing would ever make it right again, but this certainly helped. He debated spitting on Green, but decided against it. His mother had never approved of spitting and John had consequently never really practiced.

"Well, do you want to finish him off or should I?" Mrs. Hughes brought John back. He turned to her. He hadn't thought of killing him, not seriously, but it did have a certain appeal.

"Well, I have what I wanted." He remembered she had told him she had threatened Green. "You?" He didn't think she had what she wanted. Not entirely. Not by the way her eyes had narrowed and her jaw had set.

"If we leave him alive he'll just talk." She spat. "That type always does." She leaned John's cane against a column. "Always tough but then, when it counts, weak and useless." She circled Green, who was indeed beginning to whimper. "Personally, I hate to leave a job half finished."

"I've always admired that about you, Mrs. Hughes." They both stared at Green. He shit himself.

"Thank you, Mr. Bates." She wiped the knife on her skirt. "Now it has been some time since I killed a pig, but some things are never forgotten." She leaned down, and placed a hand on Green's chest. He writhed, and tried to scream. "Now, Mr. Bates, if you'd just be good enough to hold his legs still. I don't much fancy a kick to the face."

John obliged. Mrs. Hughes drew the knife from ear to ear, swiftly and expertly. Green flinched once. Mrs. Hughes kicked at him as she let him go.

"Well, that's that." Mrs. Hughes was the first to speak. She wiped the knife on the leg of Green's trousers.

"Indeed." John wished he felt less numb. At least Green was gone.

"We'll need to get rid of the evidence of course." Mrs. Hughes had Green by the arm pits. "Help me tie him to that slab and we'll toss the lot into the pond." She had removed his jacket and shirt.

"Right." John grabbed Green's ankles and helped Mrs. Hughes sling his blood-soaked body onto the remains of an old bench. Not the one he and Anna used to enjoy. "About the rest of the evidence…I'm not going to prison again."

"No, you're not. I've thought of that too." She grunted as they picked up the slab. John tried to take most of the weight onto his shoulder. They made it to the pond edge. "We should say a few words."

John thought of a few. They set Green down. John thought shoving from one end would work better to get him to the bottom of the pond. Mrs. Hughes brushed her hands on her skirt and looked at John. 

"Good riddance." It was the only suitable thing. They shoved. They kicked. They got him in the pond and waited until he sank. Good riddance indeed.

"I urged her to call the police you know." John knew. "But she wouldn't." John knew. "I knew she was right. They wouldn't have done anything. Not after the way Anna had…." John knew. Anna had been Anna. She hadn't flirted. She hadn't led him on, but it would sound that way. Anna had been Anna and now she wasn't Anna. "This was the best I could do for her, and for all the other sweet girls he'd ruin." And Mrs. Hughes was fumbling for a handkerchief. She was was trying not to cry. She couldn't find it. John didn't look at her and handed her his. Mrs. Hughes grasped his fingers as she took it, and began to sob. John steeled himself, and pulled her to him. She had had no one to confide in, no one to comfort her through this. He thought of the nights she had sobbed into her pillow, ever mindful of making a sound. He thought of Anna's secret preying on her, on her conscience. He thought of her loneliness, and her love, and her deep soul, and let her sob into his chest.

"Well." She was embarrassed. "Like I said, we need to get rid of the evidence." John had forgotten. "You take the clothes and the watch and the…well…." She gestured towards the bloody pile of penis and testicles. "…and run to the forge in the village."

John nodded. The blacksmith's fire would be burning, and was the only thing hot enough to destroy the flesh, clothes, and Green's watch to unrecognizable ash.

He bundled the wad of tissue and skin, now devoid of blood, in the middle of the clothes, with Green's watch and the knife. It wouldn't do to leave any trace. Mrs. Hughes had had the foresight to spread his trousers out so as to catch his blood, so there were no stains. "And you won't be going to prison again." She seemed to know. "After doing that to you and to Anna before, I couldn't risk it again."

"Thank you, Mrs. Hughes." He tied off the bundle. She was almost herself again.

"I'll just leave your cane near the back gate. It'll be dark, so…" So no one would know he could walk. He nodded. "Well, we'd best get going." Back to business then.

Which was how John now found himself, running through the woods, carrying a bundle. It was starting to smell. He reach the forge, picked the lock (which was admittedly not challenging) and made his way to the fire. He threw the bundle in, and pumped the bellows. Green was reduced to smoldering ashes. John watched longer than he needed to. John continued to watch as the sun began to streak the sky. Green was gone. He had had a chance to finally stretch his legs. Perhaps now he could pull Anna back from hell.


End file.
